It is also used to connect a CD or DVD drive to your motherboard.
rowlfe
2007-11-19 19:05:12 UTC
IDE stands for Integrated Drive Electronics. It was/ is a way of simplifying the electronics of the computer, shifting the burden from the interface to the drive itself. There are two IDE channels in most computers, and each can have two drives mounted, for a total of 4 drives. You can add more with a plug-in card. Most cards can handle 4 drives just like the motherboard. By adding more cards, I think the maximum number is 64, but you will run out of drive letters assignments. Most addon cards are really for an array which is something like drive "mirror" arrangements which is a redundancy thing in case of a hardware failure. You can mix and match any IDE device to any connector. Most have keyed connectors so they will fit only one into the drive or motherboard. If no key, then there is a stripe along one edge which indicates which side has pin 1.There are IDE interfaces in many devices, CDROM drives, tape drives, zip drives, stuff like that. The IDE interface simplifies what a software manufacturer has to do to handle different types of devices. There are two methods for connecting the drives, master/slave and cable-select. The cables are physically different. The master/slave will have 44 conductors and the connectors will all be identical in every respect. In this case, one IDE device has a jumper set to MASTER and the other set to SLAVE. The cable select version has 44 or 88 conductors and the connectors will be different colors. The ones I've seen have 2 black and 1 gray connector. Either black goes to the motherboard with the other black and gray going to the two devices which have a jumper set to the CS position instead of MASTER or SLAVE. From there, you need to configure the device type in the BIOS setup. Mostly this will be to select AUTO configuration, but it used to be you had to tell the BIOS things like number of heads, cylinders and sectors.
Natey W
2007-11-19 18:14:22 UTC
they connect the HD and sometimes the CD drives to the MB
ralilja
2007-11-19 18:42:01 UTC
The IDE cable connects CD drives and Hard drives to the mother board. They transfer data and commands between the devices but not power. The cables come in the 40 pin and 80 pin configurations. You do have to observe and connect the cables correctly for them to work. The side of the cable with a red line indicates pin #1 and that has to be toward the correct position as indicated on the drives and Motherboard. On drives it usually connects nearest the power connector. The cable sometimes has indications saying which end is the motherboard and drive #1 & #2 -these will not usually work if reversed so be advised.
I hope this answers your question fully!
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